PhD student Sjoukje Goldman’s first article has been published in the Small International Business Journal. This is the first of three that will follow in the coming years. The PhD research will run until July 2022. The article has already been published online, but not yet publicly. After placement in one of the issues of the journal the article will fall under the open access policy of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam and can be read by anyone. Until then, the article can be requested from Sjoukje Goldman via s.p.k.goldman@hva.nl.

This research looked at the impact of strategic orientations, as part of the corporate strategy, on the deployment of digital marketing tactics in foreign markets and on sales in foreign markets in the area of cross-border e-commerce. Goldman also makes a comparison between webshops that started in a developed e-commerce market versus webshops that started in emerging e-commerce markets.

In the study, 446 small and medium sized webshops from 20 European countries participated. It shows that having a foreign market orientation as part of the marketing strategy directly results in a higher use of digital marketing tactics in cross-border e-commerce. For merchants from developed e-commerce markets it is important to adopt a growth strategy, otherwise there may be too much focus on local e-commerce at home and less on the growth potential across the border. For webshops from emerging e-commerce markets, it is important not to focus too much on a customer-centric marketing strategy. In fact, such a focus reduces the use of those digital marketing tactics, even though such use ensures better business results.